


A World of Man

by blueberryscowler



Category: Dark Is Rising Sequence - Susan Cooper
Genre: Adventure, Autumn, Cornwall, Friendship, Gen, Halloween, Hurt/Comfort, Memory, Post-Canon, arthuriana
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-12
Updated: 2018-01-12
Packaged: 2019-03-04 01:51:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,900
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13354005
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blueberryscowler/pseuds/blueberryscowler





	A World of Man

“There’s someone at the door,” said Barney without looking up from his book. He rarely stopped reading since their last Summer holidays. Simon scowled at him. “Do you think we wouldn’t hear that?” he asked as he got up from the sofa, and walked towards the large door. The Drews didn’t expect any visitors, especially since most of their parents’ friends knew they were not at home during the weekend, and so he wondered who that could be. To his even greater surprise, it was a delivery girl with a small brown paper package in her hand.  
  
“Since when do you have to work on Sundays?” he asked and the girl shrugged with a smile. “It’s a private service. We work 24 hours a day, seven days a week, even at Christmas.” She was awfully pretty to Simon, but of course, he was in an age where every girl was pretty, especially when they were older and smiled brightly, and handed him the package. “Please sign this,” she said and Simon did as he was told, enjoying the feeling of being important and old enough to sign a package acceptance for his parents.   
  
“Even at Christmas, you say? That’s interesting. What is your company name?”  
  
The girl’s smile froze on her face. “I doubt you will be able to afford our postage, dear boy. You better tinker something nice for your parents and your little friends and give it to them directly,” she said and left, quickly disappearing in the London traffic. Simon looked down on the small parcel in his hands and realised that it was, in fact, not meant for either of his parents.  
  
“What have you got there?” asked Barney as his older brother went back to him, his eyes still fixed on his book.   
  
“A parcel,” said Simon. “It’s for Jane, at least according to the address. I wonder who would send her a package, it’s not even close to her birthday.”

“Well, maybe you should take a look at the sender,” suggested Barney, at which Simon made an scoffing noise.  
  
“You are so smart, my dearest little brother,” he said with sharp irony, “there is no sender. At least not on the outside of the package.”  
  
Barney finally looked up from his book, but only for a few seconds. “We’ll have to wake her up.”  
  
Simon shook his head, while turning the package around. “No. We’ll give it to her, as soon as she gets up by herself. I don’t want to exhaust her more than necessary.”  
  
Barney rolled his eyes and sighed. “Jane isn’t sick! She knows as well as I, and so do mum and dad. And dad is, unlike  _you_ ,” there he made a dramatic pause, “a  _real_  doctor. She’s just lazy, and probably a bit sad right now. Must be puberty or something.”  
  
Simon laughed bitterly. “You will get to that soon enough yourself, boy,” he said and lightly slapped on his brothers back. “By the way, what’s wrong with you? You’ve read faster than anyone I ever knew, when you were little, and now you’re staring at one and the same page for almost half an hour.”  
  
Barney scowled at him. “Really, that long? Well, you know, it’s not about the text. It’s about an illustration.” He handed his brother the book, which featured a large picture of a handsome, proud looking blond man, with a noble, yet vain expression and harsh features.  
  
“So, what’s so special about it?” asked Simon.  
  
“It’s supposed to be King Arthur.”  
  
“Yeah, I see. Just as it’s written beneath the picture.”  
  
“But,” began Barney, “don’t you think it looks… sort of wrong?”  
  
Simon frowned. “In what way? The artist has never met him, and neither did you. Who should know what he really looked like?”  
  
Barney shrugged. “I don’t know, but it doesn’t feel right to me. That’s just not him.”  
  
“Oh, Barney,” Simon sighed, “he probably never existed. If don’t have to like the image, you’ll have to draw one yourself.”  
  
Barney made a shirty noise, and finally turned the page of his book to continue reading. Simon sat down and examined the small package. It was wrapped in old-fashioned brown paper, held together with a cord string. Jane’s address was written on it in very small, elegant handwriting. It almost looked like a print, despite very obviously being done with a fountain pen. There was nothing else on it, not even a stamp or some other sort of marking. Simon thought it was strange, but probably a peculiarity of the delivery company.  
  
“So you finally got up,” said Barney who, despite being lost in his book, heard his sister come down the stairs before Simon did. Jane nodded and slowly came closer to her brothers, and sat down beside Simon on the sofa. She was still in her pyjamas. “What have you got there?” she asked and Simon handed her the parcel. “It just arrived for you a few minutes ago.”  
  
“I thought I’d have heard someone at the door,” said Jane as she took the small brown bundle. Her voice sounded flat and low, and her eyes seemed sort of dry, although she didn’t look pale or in any other way unhealthy. Simon put his hand on her forehead, and she dodged away. “Stop that!” she said angrily and Barney sighed. “I want to see what this is. There’s no sender.”  
  
“That’s what surprised us, too,” said Simon as he waved his hand in front of her eyes. As a response, Jane elbowed him in the side, and he took his arm down without comment. Jane carefully opened the ribbon and paper wrap. Inside of it was a small box, without a letter or card. She lifted its lid and then scowled. Simon leaned over to see what was in there, and even Barney put his book aside and got up from his chair to take a look. “I have seen this before,” he said. Jane slowly nodded. “Yes.”  
  
“But where? When?” asked Simon. It was a small tube made of brass. “A telescope case,” said Barney and his siblings nodded in silent agreement. Jane carefully took it out of the box and opened it. “There’s a scroll of paper in it,” she said, to point out the obvious, and unfurled it. It was a letter, written with an old typewriter, and signed in the same, beautiful handwriting:

  
All three children stared to the letter in a useless try of making sense of it. “The Sailor,” said Barney. Simon said, not as a response: “The Day of the Dead.”  
  
“We’ll have to show it mum and dad,” said Jane, and realised that it would be wrong to do so the very moment. “No, of course, we should not.”  
  
“What is the Light, and how should it have forgotten us?”  
  
“And what did our uncle not tell us?”  
  
“Which uncle does he mean, anyway?”  
  
“Gummery, perhaps?”  
  
They all swallowed hard. They have not seen their great-uncle since for months, and their parents refused to talk about him. Her mother always got awfully sad when someone mentioned his name, and so they never did any more. They wondered if something dreadful might have happened to him, but none of them dared to say it out loud.  
  
To lead the topic away from her uncle, Jane said: “Why was the package addressed to me, but the letter for all of us?”  
  
“I don’t know,” said Simon.  
  
“In case our parents would find it,” said Barney and his siblings looked at him. “What do you mean?” asked Jane. Barney shrugged. “Well, because you’re so orderly and well-behaved and all that jazz. They wouldn’t get suspicious and just think a pen pal of yours had sent you a gift.”  
  
“Barney and I however,” said Simon, who got what Barney meant, “are not as prim and proper as you, and they might think it was a prank or something.”  
  
“But how would these people, this  _Sailor_ , know all of this?” They had no answer.  
  
“We should better hide this, until we find out more,” said Simon and Jane put the letter back in the case, the case in the box, and wrapped it all up. When she was finished, the parcel looked as good as unopened.  
  
“I will hide it under my mattress,” she said and got up. “And I shall better get dressed until our parents come home for dinner.”  
  
  
Dinner was gloomy that evening. Their parents weekend trip didn’t went as it should. Their father went to a doctor’s congress in Surrey, not knowing he would meet a very hostile colleague, which turned their meeting in quite a big fight about treatment options and the British healthcare system. Their mother intended to paint in the meantime, but she sprained her wrist while taking her suitcase out of the car. Their mood was reflected on their children, who could hardly think of anything but the mysterious letter in the telescope case.  
  
“I sure need some sort of vacation,” said their mother. “So do I,” their father agreed grumpily.  
  
“What about Cornwall?” asked Barney. The others looked up from their pales and stared at him. “Cornwall?” asked their father.  
  
“I’d like to visit Trewissick again,” he said bluntly. “Especially because of my Arthur – I want to draw a picture of him, for the next contest at my school, and it seems to be the most appropriate place.”  
  
“He was Cornish, wasn’t he?” asked Simon, and Barney nodded. “Yes, he was. And I didn’t even realise the last two times we were there – even though I  _technically_  knew.”  
  
“Trewissick is really pretty,” said the mother. “And we never saw it in Autumn. I shall be fine with it, even though I probably won’t be able to paint anything myself.”  
  
“And the air will be good for dear Jane,” said the father. Simon looked up at him.  
  
“Does that mean you finally agree with me?”  
  
“No. Absolutely not. But Jane is in a difficult age – you both are! – and it’s very exhausting for her right now.  
  
I say, we should go to Cornwall.”  
  
These words lightened the mood at the dinner table at least a little, but the children’s minds were still largely occupied by the message they received. What was truly unsettling to them was, in fact, not the anonymity or the aggressive tone of the letter, but much rather that the sender expected them to understand more than they did, and even more so, that they knew they should know more. Blurred memories constantly floated around in their heads, but too far away to see or touch them. Barney shook his head like a wet hound, and his mother looked at him.  
  
“Are you alright, Barney? Do you need something?”  
  
“No, I’m alright. I just thought… I can hardly remember our holidays in Trewissick. Of course, I remember Rufus, and the time we spent at the beach, but… I can hardly see how all that filled so many weeks.”  
  
“Ah, the holidays feel endless and rushed at the same time – especially during the Summer. You’ve had so much fun with… the dog, and the sea, and all,” their father said with a quick glance at his wife.  
  
“It will certainly be nice,” said Jane with a mild smile. “I really liked it there. The second time, too, I think. But I had plenty of wild dreams then.”

 


End file.
